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'We're like fire and ice': The good and the bad of 'Saturday Night Live'

Mon, 12/07/2009 - 00:33 — Ben


The old Saturday Night Live, Chris Rywalt writes, "is actually much, much worse than we remember. The current season only seems like a severe drop in quality. The show has actually always sucked."

Rywalt, as usual, isn't entirely wrong. But he isn't quite right, either. (And vice-versa.) In more than 30 years on the air, Saturday Night Live has produced many gems. Think of the Two Wild and Crazy Guys, the Samurai Deli, Gumby, Willie and Frankie, Billy Crystal's Joe Franklin Show bits, Ebony and Ivory, Chris Farley's Motivational Speaker, The Sinatra Group, "More Cowbell." Think of those great ad parodies like Schmitt's Gay and Bad Idea Jeans. But a show that has 90 minutes to fill also produces a lot of unfunny garbage. How many sketches have we seen over the years that went on for six or seven minutes with few laughs and lame endings?

Andy Samberg's digital shorts are exemplars of the best and worst of Saturday Night Live currently. I'm a big fan of Samberg's humor-laced brand of Jewish hip-hop. As good as those videos are, however, there always seems to be something that strikes a sour note. The Taser punch line in "On the Ground" doesn't quite work for me. And there is something about Shy Ronnie's "accident" that falls one or two degrees short of funny to me, even though the ending is terrific.

Subjective? Well, in matters of taste there is no argument, as the sages say. I believe I'll have another potato chip.

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Mon, 12/07/2009 - 13:10 — crywalt

In a Van Blah Blah Blah

You lost me at "Chris Farley". If Chris Farley is some kind of high watermark we can look back on fondly, that's more of a testament to just how crappy the show's become. "Where's the painfully unfunny fat guy with no discernible talent? No, not Will Ferrell. Sadly, we know where he is."

As far as I can tell, Samberg peaked with "Lazy Sunday". Note that was four fucking years ago and the guy's still here.

No, wait, he was really funny as Mark Wahlberg. That sketch had all the hallmarks of a good comedy bit: Funny, recognizable, short. Nothing like anything else ever on the show.

"More Cowbell" was a great sketch but I blame that on Christopher Walken. It says something about the depths to which SNL has sunk that the last time Walken was on, even he wasn't funny. And if you can put Walken in front of a camera and not come back with "creepy as all hell" or "funnier than God" you've seriously screwed up.

SNL is not like fire and ice. It's like tepid water passed through a titmouse.

Mon, 12/07/2009 - 13:13 — Ben

Re: In a Van...

Jesus, Chris. Took you long enough.

Mon, 12/07/2009 - 13:17 — crywalt

Out

I've been out all day. I can't stay tethered to the keyboard all the time! But I'm working on it.

Mon, 12/07/2009 - 13:29 — Joel

It's like tepid water passed through a titmouse.

I stand in awe of your wordsmithery, sir.

Mon, 12/07/2009 - 13:34 — crywalt

Took Me a Bit

Took me a bit to settle on titmouse.

Thank you, sir.

Mon, 12/07/2009 - 19:56 — Wry Mouth

Chris Walken in front of a camera

"And if you can put Walken in front of a camera and not come back with 'creepy as all hell' or 'funnier than God' you've seriously screwed up."

Lest we forget, on my personal short, short list of decent music videos, a finalist for BEST MUSIC VIDEO EVAR:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZLidy7pIQ8

;o/

Tue, 12/08/2009 - 06:44 — crywalt

Song and Dance

Hard to believe Walken's a song and dance man from way back. Great video.

I found a video of Walken reading "The Three Little Pigs" but it wasn't as funny as when the Simpsons had him reading "Goodnight Moon".

Tue, 12/08/2009 - 07:32 — Joel

Re: Song and dance

To me, the wonder of Christopher Walken is that his cultural power far exceeds the quality of his movies or their box office results. Look at his IMDB page. How many of those movies have you seen? Do you WANT to see? Walken's good luck is he managed a second career comedically riffing on the creepiness he presented in his first career. It's as if Peter Lorre spent a couple of decades guest-starring on the George Burns show.

Tue, 12/08/2009 - 08:30 — crywalt

Walkenizing

You're right that his career has sort of U-turned. It's less surprising these days that he's a song-and-dance man, what with his turns in Hairspray and The Country Bears. Which I did see, at least his climactic dance number. The only more horrifying children's movie appearance I've seen is Jon Voight in Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2. Not even the existence of Angelina Jolie can fully clear Voight's name now.

Walken's IMDb page lists on the order of a hundred appearances and I can't claim to have seen them all but I've seen quite a few. Many are not as good as I thought they were at the time. The Prophecy comes to mind, especially the bad fright wig he wears through the whole thing. Curiously, I've never seen The Deer Hunter or The Dead Zone, but he was brilliant in Biloxi Blues and The King of New York (which is also great because David Caruso gets his face smashed into a fire hydrant).

Walken's scene with Dennis Hopper in True Romance is an absolute classic, too.

Yeah, I think I've seen about a third of his movies. That's a little scary.

I have this theory on the name "Christopher" -- that's my name, by the way, the C in crywalt -- that people named Christopher are puffy, soft people. Kings aren't named Christopher. Kings are named William and John, strong names like that. George. Ronald. James. Think of American Presidents: No Christophers. English kings: No Christophers. Popes, dictators: No Christophers. Christophers are big softies. Columbus, Reeve, Wren.

Except Christopher Walken. He's sharp and scary, right? Intense, brooding, edgy? Throws off my theory about the name, right?

Except his real name's not Christopher. Great story, in fact: I read he changed his name during a stage production starring a famous actress who decided she didn't like his real name so she'd just call him Christopher. Wikipedia disagrees, but fuck 'em. The point is, he's not a Christopher, he's a Ronald.

Aha, now it all makes sense.